A Time Too Late
by HotaruGFC
Summary: Mimosa helps a patient in the hospital with heartbreaking results and questions her own inaction as a result. First Person POV, Hanahaki disease, unrequited love


I had been working in the hospital wing going through my usual rounds when the commotion started. I could hear Asta's voice ringing out against the stone walls of the room. I smiled at first. We hadn't seen each other since the incident, but then the panicked tone in his voice scared me. I rushed from the wing to a small private room down the hall.

Owen, my new mentor, stood over someone. I could see Asta's back too, but I could not see who lay on the examination table.

I could hear the coughing though. Sick, wet coughing.

And the room smelled of... roses?

"Owen? Do you need help?"

"Ah, Mimosa, come, help me stabilize him." Owen was a fine doctor and an excellent mentor. I respected him deeply because even though I am royal, he only sees me as a person who can help.

I hurried to his side only to see the great bull of a man, Yami Sukehiro, prone on the table, his body wracked by a fit of deep sickly coughs. As he coughed, bits of blue something fluttered into the air, expelled from his mouth. The specks of blue flew everywhere.

"Tell me what happened," Owen ordered as his magic surrounded the magic knight. He looked at me and with a nod, I followed suit.

"We don't exactly know. Yami's always had a cough, but it's been getting worse lately. And today, he starts coughing up these blue flecks of something and collapses." A nervous brunette tapped his fingers on his arm and his foot on the floor. He started pacing the room. I tried to focus on my task and let the green glow of my magic caress and surround the ill man as I have done so many other times today and every day since I began training with Owen.

I watched my mentor open the patient's mouth and look inside.

"What is that?" Owen frowned. I've learned the frown was his way of showing his curiosity. "Asta, hand me those forceps." He gestured at a small tray of tools. "Ah, the pinchy ones, like tweezers."

The patient's body convulsed as Owen tugged at something with the forceps at the back of his throat. I did my best to bind him with my magic, but Captain Yami is very big and very strong. I don't think I was much help. He broke into another fit of coughs once Owen had pulled the obstruction from him.

"What in the world?"

"It's a rose petal?" I could not hide my shock. The patient coughed again, this time fully formed rose petals erupted from his mouth. "But, why are they blue?"

"Finral, Can you find Captain Charlotte?"

"I, uh, I know where her headquarters are."

"Good, go there. And pray she is there."

"Owen? Why did you send him for Captain Charlotte?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Do you know anyone else who uses blue roses?"

For the life of me, I could think of no one.

The minutes of waiting felt like hours. No one talked in the room. The only sound was his coughing. And with every cough, he was festooned with more flower petals. The sound sickened me and the once beautiful smell will now forever be tainted with the acrid scent of blood.

I will never see roses – of any color – the same way again.

Nor will I ever be able to look at Captain Charlotte without seeing the anguish on her face when she saw Yami laying on the table, his body covered in petals and convulsing in another cough.

"Owen, I don't understand, why did you bring me here?" Her voice was even, plain, almost business-like, and it was a sharp counterpoint to the look on her face.

"Do you have any idea what could have made Yami start coughing up blue roses?"

I did not think it was possible for skin to get paler than Charlotte already was.

"I, um, I'm not sure, but..."

Oh, get on with it! I wanted to shake her as she covered her face, but my duty was keeping my patient alive. I tried looking for the petals inside him, to excise them, but nothing inside was right.

"It might be related to my curse. Oh, Yami, I'm sorry."

What curse? How could her curse affect him? My mind was getting jumbled.

Focus, Mimosa. One thing at a time. Listen. Observe.

"My briars scratched him in a fight. It was an accident, a minor wound, I thought nothing of it. Neither did he. We've both had much worse."

"Get to it Charlotte." Owen sounded impatient. I did my best to maintain the healing aura while also staying out of his way.

"I never imagined... The mana from the petals, it feels just like when I lost control of my magic, like when the curse activated."

She sounds so sad. I could feel my own eyes welling with tears.

"Do you know how to break the curse, Charlotte? If you don't, he will die. As soon as I remove one, three more sprout in its place. At this rate, he won't last much longer."

I glanced up at her for only a moment. She looked like a woman at a crossroads, staring at him.

"To have my heart stolen." I could barely make out her words. Maybe she said 'to have my hearth token'? But with the pained look on her face, I would wager I had heard correctly. Still, it was hard to hear over the sound of him coughing and choking on the petals filling him within.

"And you did, all those years ago."

I could feel the problematic magic within him shifting. Like it was on the verge of collapse.

"It seems foolish now, waiting so long to tell you. But I can't let you die. Not for my foolish mistake. I love you, Yami."

Wetness streaked my cheeks as I focused on the patient before me, pouring my magic into his being in hopes of stemming the onslaught he experienced as the foreign mana overtook him, manifesting as the flowers. I glanced up to see her hands covering her mouth and her body quivering. Was that glint of light from tears on her cheeks? The glow of my own mana made it difficult to tell.

But her words had tipped the balance. The invading power ebbed and the flowers dissipated into a soft blue glow before vanishing entirely. Within seconds, I could sense nothing within him. My healing magic showed everything where it belonged where there had only been chaos before. The coughing stopped and his body stilled.

And then I could sense nothing from him for a moment.

No heartbeat.

No life force.

No mana.

"I don't understand? Is he...?" Captain Charlotte gasped, her voice cracking.

"Give me a moment." Owen's voice was harsh, strained. He used some spell or technique I had only seen him use once before and Captain Yami gasped. Captain Charlotte laughed in relief. And I took a deep breath, feeling the sense of ease at a life saved.

I want to say everyone was smiling as he opened his eyes. I know I was. Owen and I helped him sit up, but he quickly waved us away. He sat, staring into his lap for a long moment, taking deep breaths. When he looked up, I did not expect to see such sadness in his face.

"Oh, Charlotte. I'm so sorry."

I shivered as if a cold wind had blown through the room only there was no other sign of a breeze.

"Of course." At the voice, I turned to Captain Charlotte at the foot of the examination table. I could see the relief on her face morph into disappointment and resignation. The glistening tracts the tears had made on her cheeks dried into salty lines.

"It's to be expected. It's just my luck, actually." The bitterness in her voice sent an arrow through my heart, shattering it into a million pieces. As the glow of my magic faded, I looked from one captain to the other before my eyes fell on the young man across the room.

Asta.

Would I have the courage to tell him what is in my heart? Or would I also wait until it was nearly too late?


End file.
